VIII.3. Mediterranean EEBA Province

In south-east Iberia, the 22nd century BC sees the emergence of new residential, productive, and funerary practices known as “El Argar”, which does not show typical Bell Beaker pottery, specialised flint production, decorated stone, round dwellings with stone foundations, walled or ditched enclosures, collective burial rites, or any other local Iberian or Central European Chalcolithic feature. Argaric communities stand out as a complete ignorance or fundamental rejection of the meaning and ideology of these objects, probably the consequence of an imported population, and also possibly language replacement, with a break of the previous Weltanschauung (Risch et al. 2015).

This culture brings a more regionalised system of influence; a complex settlement organisation and architecture, with hill forts ca. 1-6 ha as focus, occupied and expanded over the next 650 years; specific intramural rite in cists, rock cut tombs, large pottery vessels (pithoi), and pits, with funerary contexts corresponding at least to three social classes during its economic peak; large array of macro-lithic tools, but limited set of metal weapons, tools and ornaments; highly standardised and finely burnished pottery production. The Argaric settlements become complex urban or proto-urban centres (Risch et al. 2015).

Its material culture shows new bone, antler, and ivory working techniques and artefacts. Flint arrowheads and blade production disappear completely, while flint was used almost exclusively for the preparation of sickle blades. Palmela and leaf-shaped projectile points continue, suggesting the use of arrows armed with metal tips or bone points. A more developed arrow technology is also suggested by sandstone polishers with a central groove, used for shaping or sharpening of bone or metal tools, possibly also as arrow shaft straighteners. All this suggest an increased precision of arrow shooting, probably related to combat rather than hunting (Risch et al. 2015).

A whole new set of macro-lithic tools appear related to the new economy: elongated narrow type of grinding slab with slightly convex transversal profile, operated with wooden manos, enables the production of finer flour in less time; a cylindrical polisher made of slate or schist to separate honey from beeswax; tools related to metal production and maintenance, such as moulds of fine sandstone for axes, awls, and ingots, or metalworking hammers; etc. The appearance of these metalworking tools in male burials supports the social and economic value of this activity in the new social and economic context (Ache et al. 2017).

Single or double burials became the most common funerary ritual in El Argar, where communal burials—typical of the previous Iberian Chalcolithic cultures, before the arrival of East Bell Beakers—disappeared. Old customs were gradually replaced by the placement of tombs underneath the settled area rather than on its margins, the use of carefully built burials (contrasting with poor Final Copper Age burials), and including new offerings alongside the body, such as metal artefacts, halberds and riveted daggers, and well-manufactured pottery, depending on the social class. This change in essential social customs further support the emergence of a new social order, dominated by a form of power within the first stages of a state organisation (Risch et al. 2015).

El Argar achieved a dominant position over resources and communication routes including neighbouring societies, as reflected in a preference for settlements on protected promontories, a socially selective burial ritual within the living space, and the movement of important raw materials like copper, silver, or ivory. Hilltop settlements are usually smaller than 0.5 ha, with a demographic density estimated as similar to El Argar settlements. These settlements share the use of plain pottery, as well as individual graves under some of the dwellings, with no apparent restrictions of sex or age (Risch et al. 2015).

It seems that the new system brought about a stabilisation of settlements and a subsequent increase in population and production. Argaric-like groups dominated over centres of communal storage and production, starting what seems a violent expansion ca. 2150–1900 BC into neighbouring regions—including La Mancha, the east coast, and western Andalucia—which do not display a comparable degree of social exploitation as the core regions. Smaller groups expanded further ca. 1700–1500 BC, northward to Valencia and eastward into the Guadalquivir River region, where they tried to impose their funerary practices and political relations, without attaining the intensity or stability of El Argar core territory (Lull, Micó, Herrada, et al. 2013).

The late Argaric subsistence production was dominated by extensive barley cultivation, which had a severe environmental impact in the most arid region of the Iberian Peninsula. Due to the dependence on such poor-quality crops, access to animal fat and honey became crucial, with evidence showing elites consuming this kind of high energy foods, e.g. through the separation of honey from beeswax through “pressed honey” method, using specialised tools made for this task (Ache et al. 2017).

The economic and social hegemony of El Argar ended ca. 1550 BC, apparently by internal forces, as suggested by the suppression of its ideological superstructure—end of traditional funerary practices—and its economic system, probably because of a subsistence crisis caused by the over-exploitation of the environment. In the southern peninsula, ca. 50% of upland settlements were abandoned. Post-Argaric societies tried to maintain a vertical system of production but on a local scale, returning to systems of self-sufficiency, with regionally diverse stockbreeding, agriculture, and metallurgy. Specialised workshops for cereals and textiles disappear, and pottery copies decorative motifs originally from Cogotas I style. There are some traces of regional centres of power with local, perhaps hereditary aristocracy, controlling interregional communication and centralising surpluses (Lull, Micó, Herrada, et al. 2013).

After the Late Bronze Age, most settlements were abandoned, and small settlements—some on hilltops—comprising huts with oval bases made of stone or mud-brick are found, with evidence supporting that they were specialised in stockbreeding. Eventually, near the 1st millennium BC, new hilltop centres appear, or existing settlements were reorganised, which evidence the emergence of specialised metallurgy. The south-western corner becomes a producer and consumer of Atlantic metals and metals from Sierra Morena, and possibly Sardinia (Lull, Micó, Herrada, et al. 2013).

Diverse pre-Beaker traditions overlapped in the north-western Mediterranean region, such as the Treïlles (3300–2800 BC) and the Véraza groups (3500–2500 BC). Lowland pit sites and cave occupations were common, and semi-nomadic farming was the main subsistence economy. There is no evidence of local metallurgy. During the Bell Beaker phase, Old Neolithic monuments were still reused; selected dead were interred with standardised mortuary assemblages in pits adapted for the purpose or individual cists (either laid flat, semi-flexed, or in very contracted positions), as well as hypogea, or caves. The first gold and copper smelting appear in the region, mainly found in funerary contexts, with its technology disconnected from the Iberian tradition. The chaînes operatoires and products on both sides of the Pyrenees—including Catalonia, Provence, Languedoc, and north-eastern Italy—were thus strikingly similar, with comparable atypical chemical compositions and characteristic metallic types, such as biconvex gold beads, copper tanged daggers, and breastplates (Blanco-González et al. 2018).

To the south-west, in the Middle Ebro basin, Chalcolithic groups show tumuli, multiple burial bits, megaliths, and natural caves, some later reused during the Bell Beaker phase, with settlements showing huts delimited by postholes, and elongated dug-out hearths. In Valencia, preferences continue since the Neolithic, with ditched enclosures and upland prominent sites. Burial practices show continued inhumations in pits and in caves. The Epi-Bell Beaker or late Bell Beaker fineware marks the onset of the Bronze Age ca. 2250 BC in the region. It is represented by the Arbolí, consisting of bowls with incised and impressed motifs (swags, garlands, suns, etc.), stemming from the south of the Pyrenees and reaching the Cantabrian fringe, the upper Duero, and Alicante to the south. In the other direction, twin-bodied vessels expand from Valencia to the upper Ebro ca. 1900 BC (Blanco-González et al. 2018).

Metallurgy gains in importance, with the first bronze alloys concentrated in the Ebro / south Pyrenees area, and intense exchange networks are kept in the east Mediterranean, between groups belonging to Polada, Terramare, Únětice, and Rhône Basin Cultures, characterised by the production of polypod vases. Around 1600 BC, metallurgy had acquired social esteem akin to the Bell Beaker period, within a context of increasing social asymmetry evidenced by burials of metalworkers, although metallurgy is weakened in comparison with western and central European centres. There is an increase in agrarian production and sedentarisation, but mortuary customs continue to be—as in the Chalcolithic—highly varied, with cavities, orthostatic chambers and galleries, reused rock-cut caves or hypogea, and burials made in pits (Blanco-González et al. 2018).

This period ends with the start of the Late Bronze Age ca. 1600/1500 BC, coinciding with the appearance of the earliest Urnfield groups south of the Pyrenees, known as the Segre–Cinca I group (ca. 1650–1300 BC), showing contacts between Iberia and central Europe. It is associated with carinated button-handled vessels, akin to Italian Polada examples. Rectangular dwellings with stone foundations and the use of pottery vessels with fluted decoration (linked to the emergence of the funerary phenomenon of the Urnfields) buried in a pit along with grave goods in a pit, sometimes marked on the surface. Although this practice is found scattered in northern Portugal and the south-east, the greater density of graves in the north-east suggests that new populations may have crossed the Pyrenees bringing the Hallstatt culture, although certain previous forms of settlement and burial ritual remain (Lull, Micó, Herrada, et al. 2013). Reaching up to the Middle Ebro and Aragon, open-air nucleated sites become more frequent and stable. (Blanco-González et al. 2018).

Regions neighbouring north-east Iberia show different developments. In southern France, the funerary use of caves continues throughout the Bronze Age, with inhumations and cremations showing a more or less structure deposition, and collective family graves being also common, including small funeral monuments (mounds and/or enclosures). The Mailhacien culture shows huge cremation cemeteries. In east Iberia, however, the Bronce Mediterráneo or Iberian-Valencian Bronze Age from ca. 2200–1800 BC shows new upland permanent settlements, often fortified, probably due to the Argaric influence. Villages show rectangular dwellings with stony foundations; inhumations with burial furnishings (intramural and extramural), including dismembered human remains; agriculture with a focus on cereals and using irrigation; and an increase in settlements and human activity up to 1600 BC (Blanco-González et al. 2018). The influence of Post-Argaric settlements increases then to the north (see §VIII.3.1. El Argar).

The first phase of colonisation of the Balearic Islands started in Majorca ca. 2400–2300 BC, with populations probably from the north-western Mediterranean arc, judging by the affinities of its late Bell Beaker tradition with the Pyrenean style of north-eastern Iberia, Roussillon and Languedoc. Caves and rock shelters were used as settlements and occasionally as burial sites, and huts on open-air settlements were the most common construction. Settlements were occupied seasonally, and its subsistence economy was probably based on animal herding and slash–and–burn agriculture. Continuity with Iberian Bell Beakers is observed in pottery shapes (especially the typical Bell Beaker Begleitkeramik), bone manufacture, and funerary rites (Lull, Micó, Rihuete Herrada, et al. 2013).

During the next colonisation phase ca. 2100–1600 BC, the Epi-Bell Beaker–Dolmen archaeological group reaches Menorca and the Pine Islands. Settlements follow a similar pattern, with material culture showing pottery decorated with incised designs related to Bell Beaker style, hence ‘Epi-Bell Beaker’. The most striking change is perceived in funerary contexts, where new kinds of tombs are used: it starts with hypogea with a single circular or oval chamber, provided with a megalithic entrance, similar to Catalan late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age examples. Dolmens—similar to megalithic tombs in Languedoc—follow in the 19th century BC, with monuments facing west and south-west. This orientation is prevalent in monuments in Languedoc and Provence, in contrast to neighbouring regions, where monuments face south or south-east. Grave goods are scarce and are composed mainly of objects of everyday use, and human remains show no apparent pattern (Lull, Micó, Rihuete Herrada, et al. 2013).

All this data point to long-lasting contacts of the Pyrenées–Languedoc societies—of north-east Catalonia and much of Mediterranean France—with populations that settled the Balearic Islands (Sureda 2018). It is believed that advances in technology, such as production of food and metallurgy, allowed for the permanent settlement of the islands. Social violence and demographic pressure in the mainland may have been the triggering factor for the development of a safer, distant community, which is supported by the scarcity of fortifications, preference for lowland locations, absence of specialised weapons, and predominance of collective burial rites, as well as absence of gold and silver ornaments (Lull, Micó, Rihuete Herrada, et al. 2013).

The Naviform group (ca. 1600–1100 BC) is characterised by the emergence of large buildings with an elongated floor plan and Cyclopean stone walls, used for craft production, showing a moderate division of labour between buildings. This architecture coincides with the abandonment of natural caves and the appearance of new types of funerary structures alongside the previous types, with communal tombs reflecting autonomous social units. In its late phase, more diversity in the naviform pattern is seen, as well as growing relevance of bronze working and agriculture within their subsistence economy (Lull, Micó, Rihuete Herrada, et al. 2013).

The Proto-Talayotic period (ca. 1100–850 BC) represents the end of the naviform society, with settlements organised in compact urban areas, organised around a large, tall stone building possibly ancestral to the talaiots. Collective funerary practices continued the use of natural caves and funerary structures like hypogea, but also saw the emergence of the navetas, large stone buildings with a circular or apse-shaped plan, tombs used for the burials of up to hundreds of bodies. Grave goods become more numerous and varied, a feature shared across the islands. This unity comes to an end with the Talaiotic period, where the construction of compact settlements or talaiots represent the affirmation of the community rather than the celebration of the past and the ancestors at a distance from the settlements (Lull, Micó, Rihuete Herrada, et al. 2013).

The Chalcolithic culture of Monte Carlo covers the whole island during the 3rd millennium BC, with an economy based on agriculture, animal husbandry, fishing, and trading with the central Mediterranean. The appearance and wide diffusion of the Bell Beaker pottery coincides with the Bonnanaro culture or Corona Moltana tradition (ca. 2200–1900 BC), and the appearance of thousands of Domus de Janas (‘House of the Fairies / Witches’). Burial rituals involve monumental tombs, also with reused anthropomorphic menhirs; appearance of metal; and small number of settlements, possibly small farms over wide areas (Lo Schiavo 2013). Small, self-sufficient and autonomous groups probably dispersed throughout the territory to form single village groupings, organised along lines of kinship (Perra 2009).

In the second phase of the EBA, the limited expansion of S. Iroxi tradition evidences cultural contacts with Iberia, and especially El Argar, as seen in sword shapes, although the copper used for manufacture is local. Pottery is scarce, and settlements are unknown, but there is an explosion of local metallurgical production. There is some cultural continuity with the Nuragic period, represented strongly by the large flanged axes, very similar to a type found in the Lazio area. The shape does not change in Sardinia, though, contrary to the evolution on the mainland, which probably indicates the independent development on the island. The Sa Turricula culture shows renewed contacts with the Italian peninsula at the end of the EBA and beginning of the MBA (Lo Schiavo 2013).

The characteristic ‘corridor nuraghi’ or ‘proto-nuraghi’ and tholos nuraghi, together with villages, and the characteristic collective burials—and eventually worship places—called ‘Giant’s tombs’, appear first, concentrated in the central and northern parts of the island, used as territorial markers. Metope patterns in pottery appearing slightly later. This society is interpreted as evolving from kinship-based during the previous period to communal-based, where there is a concentrated, common effort to erect great monuments in dominant positions, and there is an obvious spread of settlement nuclei (Lo Schiavo 2013).

Eventually, the nuraghi evolve into a golden age within the MBA–FBA transition, with complex architecture showing multi-towered, polylobate, regular or irregular structures with stone enclosures and bastions. This needed a concentrated, communal local effort, where size, number and complexity of constructions were probably considered status symbols, showing an inherited awareness of earlier kinship tradition. Based on the expansion of monumental constructions, local communities seem to unify under a centralised power. The building technique and structure of tombs change into ‘isodomic’ constructions (in regular layers), also rising in complexity, although they remain large chambers for collective burials. Metallurgical production seems to also benefit from the new organisation. Storage silos are built inside the nuraghi, and advanced cultivation of cereals seem to have been the main subsistence economy. Characteristic ‘Nuragic grey’ pottery appears associated with Mycenaean pottery, and spreads through central-southern Sardinia. However, differences in pottery seem to reflect local productions, since the Nuragic Civilisation is homogenous throughout the island (Lo Schiavo 2013).

At the transition of the EBA – Early Iron Age (from ca. 11th century BC), the traditionally close connections with the Cypriot and the Agean world during the MBA shift again to the Iberian Peninsula. Territorial systems enlarge, and the ritual or religious dimension—reflected in the increasingly religious nature of the nuraghi—is used as means of expression and overcoming conflicts, reaffirming social unity, and legitimising the power of emerging groups (Perra 2009).

The funerary practice of individual inhumations in cist graves with grave goods, and shaft tombs with grave goods, begin to appear. This is probably connected with Phoenicians, Semitic peoples settling in the island and circulating copper in the form of oxhide ingots through Mediterranean routes. Contacts across the Tyrrhenian Sea with peninsular Italy intensify, strengthening their relationship, as evidenced in written sources with interconnected genealogies, mythologies, and common designations (Lo Schiavo 2013).

Early Bell Beakers from Cerdanyola, north-east Iberia (ca. 2800–2300 BC) show no Steppe ancestry and typical Neolithic haplogroups, among them one I2a1b-M436, two R1b1b-V88, and one G2-P287. This is compatible with a late expansion of East Bell Beakers of R1b1a1b1-L23 lineages, which did eventually replace all indigenous male lines of Iberia after ca. 2000 BC (Olalde, Rohland, et al. 2018). An individual of El Argar culture from Córdoba (ca. 1500 BC), of hg. R1b1a1b1-L23 (Valdiosera et al. 2018), confirms the expansion of this haplogroup also in the culture that most likely expanded Iberian languages to the north and west.

The archaeological connection of Bell Beakers from the north-west Mediterranean (north-east Iberians and groups from southern France) with north Italian Bell Beakers is also supported by the expansion of R1b1a1b1a1a2b-U152 (xR1b1a1b1a1a2b1-L2) lineages, present today in west and north-west Italy, and by the expansion of R1b1a1b1a1a2a-DF27 lineages in France and (with subsequent bottlenecks) south of the Pyrenées.

Subclades particularly associated with eastern Iberians include the consecutive subclades R1b1a1b1a1a2a1-Z195 (TMRCA ca. 2700 BC), R1b1a1b1a1a2a1b-Z198 (TMRCA ca. 2700 BC), and later R1b1a1b1a1a2a1b1a1-M167/SRY2627 (TMRCA ca. 1800 BC), all peaking in modern eastern Iberian populations (Solé-Morata et al. 2017). Later expansions of these haplogroups to the south with the Reconquista and repeopling of east and south-east Iberia by the north-eastern Iberian kingdoms do not let us reconstruct their ancient distribution without a proper sampling of ancient populations.

Ligurian is a fragmentary Indo-European language spoken in southern France and north-eastern Italy during the Iron Age. Little is known of the language, with certain phonological traits placing it likely outside the Italic or Celtic branches (Prósper 2017), but nevertheless more closely related to them than to other North-West Indo-European dialects. The Apuani tribe, bordering Etruria during Roman times, show half of the reported Y-DNA of R1b1a1b1a1a2b3-Z56 lineages[38].

Ligurian is probably the most closely related language to the ancestral Indo-European dialects spread with East Bell Beakers through ancient Liguria and north-eastern Iberia, as well as (probably) the Balearic Islands and Corsica, before the expansion of Iberian languages from south-east Iberia. The Pre-Celtic Sorothaptic language, believed to be behind certain toponyms and inscriptions around the Pyrenees (Coromines 1976), was therefore probably closely related to Ligurian.

The expansion of East Bell Beakers in Iberia seems thus to have reached later south-eastern Iberia, with El Argar culture being preceded by a break in Chalcolithic cultural traditions, suggesting an upheaval of existing social structures or an influx of groups that cannot be distinguished from the local population at the present of genetic resolution, e.g. from south-eastern Europe (Szecsenyi-Nagy et al. 2017), possibly in part as a reaction to the spread of the Bell Beaker culture. The infiltration of Bell Beaker lineages, probably through exogamy among established chiefs of El Argar, must have led to their acculturation, in spite of the successful expansion of Yamna male lines over the indigenous ones, since ancient non-Indo-European speakers were genetically similar to Indo-European speakers (Olalde, Rohland, et al. 2018).

Nevertheless, one sample from Covacha del Ángel in southern Iberia (ca. 1700 BC), without clear archaeological context, shows a typical Neolithic haplogroup G2a2b2a1a1b-Z738 (formed ca. 8700 BC, TMRCA ca. 5200 BC), reported as xCTS4703(González-Fortes et al. 2019), hence from an upper clade of a lineage widely distributed in modern European samples, which may be alternatively interpreted as a resurgence of a local population, or rather a haplogroup incorporated in the expansion of Bell Beakers through central Europe.

Proto-Iberian, probably surviving only in El Argar ca. 2000 BC, must have spread with this culture’s early expansion to the west into Andalusia, to the north-west into the Meseta, and to the north into the Valencia region, possibly representing eventually the most densely populated areas of Iberia during the Bronze Age. The arrival of Celts and their occupation of the Meseta must have caused population movements in the east, with Iberian-speaking populations retreating to the coast and possibly expanding simultaneously to the north along the coast, displacing Ligurians to their proto-historical territory. The arrival of Phoenician and Greek settlers, with increased trade and probably renewed demographic pressure (Matisoo-Smith et al. 2018; Zalloua et al. 2018), may have caused their expansion to inner territories again.

The first Balearic settlers had substantial Steppe ancestry, which was subsequently diluted by increasing proportions of farmer-related ancestry (Pinhasi, Fernandes, and Reich 2018), which is probably to be expected in eastern Iberia, too. The expansion or resurgence of Iberian languages in the west Mediterranean islands may be related to the appearance of megalithic structures, as a sign of resurging pre-Beaker customs (possibly under the influence of eastern Iberia), such as talaiots in the Balearic Islands, the nuraghi in Sardinia, and the torri from southern Corsica (Ugas 2005). While Iberian languages are attested in the Balearic Islands in proto-historic times, the relation of Iberian (and Basque) with the described Paleosardo substrate of Sardinian languages (Blasco Ferrer 2010) remains a controversial linguistic topic.

No influence is seen from Steppe-related populations in Sardinia despite exchanges with Bell Beakers, while Iran-related ancestry is seen from the Middle Bronze Age on (Pinhasi, Fernandes, and Reich 2018). A connection of Paleosardo with a Basque-Iberian community may be supported thus by the survival of Neolithic farmer and pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherer ancestry in ancient Sardinians, also distinguished in modern Sardinians and shared particularly with modern Basques (Terradas et al. 2014), especially in samples from isolated populations of central and eastern regions (Chiang et al. 2018). It is unclear, then, if similarities of Paleosardo with Basque-Iberian languages are due to an ancient or more recent connection, i.e. the spread of Early Neolithic farmers, or some Middle or Late Neolithic population movements.

The presence of I2a1a1-M423 lineages (ca. 39%)—a typical hunter-gatherer lineage that spread with western Mediterranean Neolithic farmers (see §vii.6. Basque-Iberians) —along with Yamna-derived R1b1a1b-M269 lineages (ca. 18%) in modern Sardinian populations (Chiang et al. 2018) may support both, an ancestral connection as well as a more recent arrival of peoples from Iberia, although probably no later than 2000 BC, based on the full replacement of the male population in Iberia after that date. Similarly, the presence of elevated WHG ancestry in modern southern Italian clusters (Raveane et al. 2018) supports an ancestral connection with Iron Age Basques, as remnant populations of Early European Farmers associated with Cardial pottery.

The presence of G2a2a1a2-L91 lineages (ca. 11.3% in Corsica, especially in the south) and G2a2a-PF3147 (xL91, xM286) subclades in present-day southern Corsica and Sardinia, apart from Tuscany (Di Cristofaro et al. 2018), may support the survival or resurgence of ancestral populations after the arrival of Bell Beakers, potentially accompanied by language replacement. More recent contacts of El Argar with Sardinia and Corsica, sharing related languages, may have allowed for the diffusion of common innovations among related cultures, even if the communities had separated much earlier. The analysis of modern mtDNA shows the typical variation of maternal haplogroups, although, interestingly, some modern subclades seem to coincide in their estimates with sampled Sardinian Bell Beaker mitogenomes (so e.g. HV0j, H3u2, K1a32, or U5b2b5), which points to the arrival of the culture as an inflection point in the genetic history of the island (Olivieri et al. 2017).

The arrival of J2a1b-M67(xM92), a haplogroup associated with Anatolian Neolithic populations, in Sardinia, Corsica, Tuscany, and Provence (Di Cristofaro et al. 2018), may be related to Tyrsenian expansion, which has been related to the emergence of the Iolaei in the island (Ugas 2005), but also to more recent expansions of Greek or Roman settlers. Similarly, the appearance of J2a1-L26 lineages in eastern Iberia, and particularly J2a1d-M319 (found previously in Minoan samples), should probably be associated with Greek settlers, while the expansion of E1b1b1a1b1a-V13 (formed ca. 6100 BC, TMRCA ca. 2800 BC) in Sardinia and Iberia, as well as in Corsica, may be related to the Phoenician and Chartaginian occupations (Matisoo-Smith et al. 2018), possibly related to the increased sub-Saharan admixture observed in Sardinia (Chiang et al. 2018).